Of Snakes and Time Travel
by RumbleintheDumbles
Summary: Because really, there was only one person in the world of Naruto who would ever think that smashing the very fabric of time over his knee like a wooden stick was a good idea.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I haven't written anything for Naruto yet, but this idea came to me and won't let go.**

 **Also, I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

Jiraiya was an infamously powerful and skilled shinobi. One of the three legendary Sannin. Spymaster, veteran of decades of war, the most knowledgeable seal-master the world had seen since the fall of the Uzumaki, unmatched in the arts of subterfuge. All of this meant that there were few things in this world that could possibly get the drop on him or surprise him.

"Hello Jiraiya, want to save the world?"

His traitorous former teammate appearing out of nowhere a foot away from his face was one of those things.

"What the fuck!"

He leaped away in a blur, putting some distance between himself and the other man. Orochimaru, arguably the most infamous missing-nin in the world and another of the three Legendary Sannin, simply smiled back.

"You," Jiraiya growled, "Why are you here and – wait, do what with the what?"

"Save the world," Orochimaru repeated patiently, "I know you were the dead last of our team, Jiraiya, but I surely shouldn't need to explain things that I told you literally five seconds ago at this point."

"Explain why I shouldn't punch you in the face right now."

"Because of time-travel."

"What?" Jiraiya got the feeling he would be saying that a lot in this conversation.

"Indeed," Orochimaru folded his arms, "For you see, through the power of science, I, the greatest researcher this world has ever known, have mastered time like no other before me! I have successfully projected my consciousness back decades into the past!" he laughed maniacally for a moment.

Jiraiya blinked. "And… what, did you come back to warn us of an impending catastrophe that ended the world? That doesn't sound like you."

"Oh, no," Orochimaru shook his head, "I mean, there _is_ an impending catastrophe, but our apprentices solve that neatly enough. I just did it to see if I could."

Jiraiya nodded. _That_ sounded more like Orochimaru. Then an important part of Orochimaru's statement stuck in his mind. "Wait, I have another apprentice? You have an apprentice? They work _together?"_

"'They may have blown each other's arms off in a deadly battle for the fate of the world at one point," Orochimaru admitted, "And my apprentice may have tried to kill yours… a few times? Yes, we'll go with a few. But for the most part, yes, they are friends and comrades."

"A few ti – okay, no," Jiraiya shook his head, realising he was being taken in by this madness, "You do realise this all sounds like absolute nonsense."

"If you think it sounds bad, you should have tried being there," Orochimaru agreed, "Which you weren't, by the way. Remember those three strays you took in over in Rain country? The ones I suggested we kill? The one with the Rinnegan went insane and started believing he was a god, is now the public leader of Akatsuki and not only killed you but also single-handedly levelled Konoha. Now, I'm not going to say 'I told you so', but..." he shrugged.

"Nagato?" Jiraiya was taken aback, "Wait, _public_ leader?"

"Yes," Orochimaru continued, "The real leader pulling his strings is Uchiha Obito."

"Minato's dead student?"

"He's pretending to be Uchiha Madara," Orochimaru confirmed, "Mind you, _his_ strings are being pulled by the real Uchiha Madara."

"The dead one?"

"Being dead seems to lose a lot of its meaning in the future," the Snake Sannin nodded, "Given how much of my life's work was spent trying to gain immortality it actually got a bit irritating. Of course, _his_ strings are actually being pulled by the mother of the Sage of the Six Paths, who happens to be both the originator of chakra and an alien."

"You're just fucking with me now."

"I wish I was," his fellow Sannin commiserated, "But enough about that. Want to know how to save the world?"

"My head says no, but my burning curiosity says yes."

"Good," Orochimaru grinned, "So, you know your student's son?"

"Naruto?" Jiraiya asked guardedly.

"Yes, Naruto. He's going to save the world when he's older. So you should probably get on that right away."

"Naruto is my apprentice? Naruto saves the world?"

"Yes, it turns out you were genuinely right to believe that 'Child of Prophecy' nonsense," Orochimaru admitted, "I guess I actually owe you that beer."

"Heh, never doubt the J-man," Jiraiya grinned, before remembering something the other Sannin had said earlier. "Wait, so your apprentice tries to kill Naruto?"

"Of course. Fortunately, the future Seventh Hokage is a very forgiving person," Orochimaru nodded again, "He even invited me to his wedding. I couldn't attend, but I sent a congratulations. _You_ didn't send a congratulations, though. For shame."

"What – but – you just said I was dead! That totally doesn't count!" Jiraiya gaped.

"Bah," his rival laughed smugly, "I'd died at least _twice_ by that point and it didn't stop me. Excuses, excuses. On that note," he added offhandedly, "I'd dearly like to actually attend this time, it sounded like a wonderful event, so if you do anything to interfere with his future relationship with Hinata Hyuuga I'm going to commit terrible acts of science on your corpse."

"He gets married to a Hyuuga girl?" Jiraiya paused, ignoring the threat entirely – he and Orochimaru had been trading banter like that for decades, after all - before asking the most important question, "Is she a looker?"

"Regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Konoha in the future, I believe," Orochimaru shrugged, "Though I'm not really the correct person to judge, romance always escaped me as you well know."

"Oh yeah," Jiraiya gave his future godson an imaginary thumbs up, "I can see I taught… er, teach, future Naruto well!"

"Yes, let's go with that," Orochimaru agreed, "Anyway, I've got things to do, people to see, other people to annoy immensely, possibly even some people to kill, you know how it is, so here, have this scroll full of extremely important information and toodles!"

"Wait -" Before Jiraiya could try to stop him or take him in, his former team-mate dissolved into a pile of snakes, which then split apart and slithered off into the trees, leaving a stupefied toad sage holding an unassuming-looking scroll.

"Well," he said aloud, "I'm now mostly convinced that someone's spiked my drink, so fuck it, let's see what you're all about," he eyed the scroll, inspecting it carefully for traps.

After half an hour of thorough checking, he carefully opened the scroll. Inside was… a dossier? A series of dossiers, in fact. He began reading the first one, and his eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Holy shit."


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, this got a pretty good reception, so why not keep it going?**

* * *

Sasuke awoke with a start as unknown bindings coiled around him. He tried to cry out.

"Don't bother," said the unfamiliar voice, "I've silenced the area with a jutsu. You can scream if you want, but all it will accomplish is making you look silly and past experience suggests to me that you really don't need my help to do that."

Sasuke felt the urge to sweat. Someone had gotten the drop on him, in his house, and now had him completely at their mercy. Hearing footsteps, he looked to one side, and saw a decidedly snake-like man standing at the side of his room, staring at him with a smug grin.

"Who are you," he growled, testing his bindings – were those seriously snakes?

"My name is Orochimaru," the man said, "You may have heard of me, though I doubt it since you somehow hadn't the first time around."

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. "What do you want?"

"I want to give you gifts of power and wisdom," Orochimaru responded, "Mainly the latter, because trust me, you really, really need it, but certainly quite a bit of the former as well."

Sasuke glared at him, then tensed as the man reached into his shirt, only to pull out… a scroll?

He threw it at the bottom of Sasuke's bed. "That's a scroll full of instructions for rare, powerful and forbidden jutsu," the man said glibly, "You should really learn them. All of them."

Sasuke eyed the scroll carefully. "And why would you be giving me something like that? What do you get out of it?"

"I need you," Orochimaru said slowly, "To defeat an alien."

Sasuke stared at him.

"I mean, you can also use them to, I don't know, kill your brother or whatever it is you kids get up to these days," he continued, "But the alien is the most important thing."

"You're insane," Sasuke noted.

"I've been told that before," Orochimaru agreed, "But are you going to turn down a treasure trove of powerful jutsu because you think the person giving it to you is insane?"

"Don't put words in my mouth," Sasuke said quickly.

"I thought so," Orochimaru chuckled, "But what use is power without the knowledge of how to use it? So, Sasuke… let me enlighten you on how the world works..."

* * *

 ** _\- Meanwhile, elsewhere in Kohoha -_**

Naruto glared at the letter that had been dropped through his mailbox alongside a forbidden scroll that, unbeknown to him, ordinarily should have made its home in the Hokage's tower.

 _Dear Naruto_

 _I bet two bowls of ramen that anyone who can't learn every jutsu in this forbidden scroll is an idiot slacker who'll never be Hokage._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Someone who has more chance of becoming Hokage than you_

"Oh yeah? I'll show you, bastard!" Naruto declared to his unknown challenger, "I'll learn every jutsu on this thing in no time flat and then I'll find you and kick your ass!" He paused, "Then I'll take those two bowls of ramen. Actually wait, I'll do that first. But after that!" He shook his fist to the heavens, "Consider your ass kicked, dattebayo!"

* * *

 ** _-Elsewhere in Fire Country-_**

"You have a letter, Master," Shizune said curiously.

"A letter?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow, "It's not a debt collector, is it?"

"I don't think so?"

"Well, let's open it and find out, then."

When Tsunade tore open the letter, two things happened.

One, a very loud noise went off.

Two, an explosion of red liquid burst furiously from a seal implanted on the letter, literally caking the unfortunate Sannin, and the entire half of the room she was standing in. Recognising the liquid for what it was, she promptly shut down.

All Shizune could do was stare in shock and take the somehow pristine letter from the hand of her now-catatonic instructor and skim it briefly.

 _Dear Tsunade,_

 _Surprise! Shock therapy._

 _From your caring and thoughtful friend,_

 _Orochimaru_

* * *

 **-Back in Sasuke's apartment-**

"Okay, I get the whole "Don't trust people who wear masks and conceal at least one eye" thing," Sasuke agreed, "That seems like common sense, if they're hiding that much of their face they must be up to no good. But what should I do if I'm forced to interact with someone like that? Like, if it's a mission?"

"The best course of action is to interact with them as much as is necessary to extract yourself from the situation," Orochimaru advised, "Then go and talk to somebody trustworthy, like someone who _doesn't_ wear a mask and conceals at least one eye."

"Okay," Sasuke nodded, writing down notes, "On the last thing, I can't think of any particular reason I would want to attack a meeting of five of the most powerful ninja in the world plus their bodyguards, unless one of those ninja was Itachi at least, so I think we're good on that front."

"You'd be surprised at how bad a person's decision-making process can get after talking to mask-wearing people who conceal at least one eye," Orochimaru cautioned him, "Now - and this one's important - if you're going to leave your daughter in the village without you for years while you go on a long-term mission, make sure before you go that they'll have no doubts about the maternity."

Sasuke frowned in confusion. "Are you sure you don't mean paternity?"

"Surprisingly, no," Orochimaru shook his head, "Just trust me on this. I am saving you from an _extremely_ awkward misunderstanding in the future, here."

"Okay," Sasuke nodded, it was a little strange and out of context but like most things he was being told tonight, it seemed sensible enough. In fact, despite their rough introduction (and what was a little ambush and home invasion between ninja?) this Orochimaru guy seemed to talk more sense than any of the ninja in Konoha. He hoped the man would come back after this, he was going to graduate the academy soon and he was sure he'd have many more questions for him later.


	3. Chapter 3

Sasuke was not having a good couple of days.

The day before yesterday had gone reasonably well. He had, quite expectedly, passed his genin graduation exam with flying colours, and was now a fully-fledged ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Or so he had thought.

Because that was when things had started going downhill.

Firstly, he had been put on a team with Naruto, the loudmouth dead last (who had somehow managed to pass by pulling off a clone jutsu when he had never been able to do it before, which had Sasuke admittedly curious) and Sakura, the equally loudmouth girl who constantly irritated him by fighting over him with the blonde Yamanaka girl.

Secondly, his sensei had shown up to collect them hours later than he was supposed to. This served to solidify his strong distrust of the man, the seed of which was planted by the third issue:

His sensei had a mask. And he covered one of his eyes with his headband.

The evidence was clear: this was one of those dangerous individuals Orochimaru warned him about.

The nefarious villain had brought them to the roof, and introduced himself as Kakashi Hatake before proceeding to tell them absolutely nothing about himself, further cementing his status as a truly suspicious character.

He then had them do the same, before telling them to arrive early for a test the next day, because they weren't actually genin and had to get through another trial to actually obtain the rank and not end up going back to the academy. He also told them not to eat.

Due to his mistrust of such an obvious liar, Sasuke ate breakfast before going out. And of course, their sensei was late again. He laid out the rules of the test, those being that they had to take a pair of bells (likely booby-trapped) from him to pass.

And then his cunning enemy said the words that would doom them all.

"Now, remember," Kakashi said casually, "If you want to take the bells, you're going to have to come at me with intent to kill. Give me everything you've got."

"Are you sure, sensei?" Naruto asked curiously, "I mean, it'll kind of suck if we kill you by accident and need to wait even longer for a new teacher."

Kakashi chuckled. "I don't think there's any fear of that happening. Hit me with everything in your arsenal, Naruto."

"Okay!"

Naruto cheerfully started making hand-signs.

Sasuke barely caught Kakashi's visible eye start to widen in alarm in a manner that was almost convincing before everything started exploding.

Several hours later, when he woke up in the hospital, he reflected on the day's events;

Kakashi was, as he was warned, a man who wore a mask and concealed one of his eyes.

The man had spoken to Naruto a grand total of _twice_.

On the second instance, Naruto, the idiotic and irritating but prior to that point mostly harmless moron, immediately proceeded to blow up an entire training field and everything in it, including Sasuke and Sakura, in a terrifying display of destructive power, with only Kakashi himself remaining relatively unharmed, Sasuke was informed, thanks to his incredible skill at gratuitously abusing the substitution jutsu.

"Oh god," he breathed, horrified, "It's even worse than I imagined."

* * *

"I have two questions," Kakashi sighed, sitting in the Hokage's office and still feeling the exhaustion from his near-death experience earlier in the day. "Actually, no, I have more than two, I have far more than two, but I'll settle for answers for two. One: how the hell is that kid regarded as a dead last if he managed to learn _every_ jutsu on that scroll in a couple of weeks? Isn't the Reaper Death Seal on there? How do you even _practice_ a jutsu that literally kills you when you use it?"

"Must be his Uzumaki blood coming through," the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, offered quickly, wisely deciding to keep silent on his own studies regarding that particular jutsu.

"And secondly," Kakashi continued, "Why is Orochimaru stealing our forbidden jutsu and then giving them out to genin candidates?"

"It does seem rather out of character for him," Hiruzen mused, "Normally he would steal the forbidden jutsu _and_ the genin candidate. But it also seems to tie in with a rather odd message I received from Jiraiya a few days ago."

"Jiraiya heard something about Orochimaru as well?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"Straight from the horses mouth," the Third Hokage confirmed, before opening one of the drawers at his desk.

After a second or two, he found a letter, and held it out for Kakashi, who promptly took it and read it silently.

After a moment, he paused. "Lord Hokage… are you sure Jiraiya wasn't drunk when he wrote this?"

"Oh, I'm quite sure he was on _at least_ his tenth shot," Hiruzen agreed, having studied all of his students' handwriting more than enough times to know roughly how much alcohol was coursing through their veins as they wrote it, "However, given that he also sent me a series of documents, in Orochimaru's sober handwriting," he was more than a little bit proud that he could still determine that too, "Thoroughly detailing the strengths, weaknesses and psychological profiles of ten extraordinarily powerful and dangerous missing-nin, two of which are from Konoha, I don't think he was necessarily incorrect. So we may well have on our hands an Orochimaru who claims to be a time-traveller from a future in which he was at least partially reformed. On that note," Hiruzen started looking somewhat uncomfortable, "You… how do I say this… you may want to read one of these dossiers."

He handed the dossier to Kakashi.

Kakashi read it.

He read it again.

Then a third time, just to be sure.

He stared, silently at the wall for several minutes.

"I think I'm going to follow Jiraiya's example." Kakashi concluded slowly, "And get absolutely mind-bogglingly drunk."

"Send me a copy of your handwriting when you're done," Hiruzen requested. When Kakashi stared at him, he shrugged. "What? Hokages have hobbies too."


	4. Chapter 4

Hinata sighed as she made her way slowly through the streets of Konoha. Her father had tasked her with an errand to pick up some medicinal ingredients from the Nara clan. She didn't really mind doing this, as they were always kind to her and gave her some extra things to make her salves with, if not for the fact that it was a blatant ploy to get her out of the home so he could train with Hanabi.

She didn't know if it was because he found her to be a nuisance or if it was some roundabout method to try and spare her feelings from seeing her more talented younger sister give him a harder fight than she could. She hoped it was the latter, but her inherent cynicism when it came to her family had her leaning towards the former.

These thoughts occupied her as she gloomily turned a corner, only to bump into someone. She gasped, and wondered what her father would say about a Hyuuga with no situational awareness.

"I'm sorry -" she started, but her apology died in her throat when she realised who she had bumped into. Naruto Uzumaki, her secret crush and the person who inspired her in so many ways, blinked in confusion as he also realised who he was talking to.

"Oh, Hinata, right? Don't worry about it, I shoulda been looking where I was going," he said amicably.

She felt the blood rising to her face as she started feeling slightly faint. She still couldn't muster up the courage to speak to him directly. The edges of her vision started to black out…

Suddenly, something seemed to surge through her, both metaphorically and metaphysically. She felt… confident? More confident than she ever had before. In fact, she didn't feel like fainting at all. She was going to talk to Naruto Uzumaki today, damn it! Her spine straightened. She looked him in the eye.

"No, Naruto," she said without even a hint of a stutter, much to her surprise, "I should have been watching as well instead of dwelling on other things."

"Eh," he shrugged, "We'll call it even, then."

"Okay," she smiled, "I see that you are still wearing your headband. I'm glad that you passed the second test."

"Oh," he blinked in surprise, "Well, thanks! So you guys got a second test as well?"

"Yes," Hinata nodded, "We had to track and retrieve a target for Kurenai-sensei." And as much as she liked animals, she would be very happy if she never saw that cat again. In fact, while she was not normally one to wish harm on any creature, she probably wouldn't even have minded if that cat had found it's way to the training ground that someone had blown up. "How about you? Was yours any different?"

"Oh, we had to get a pair of bells from Kakashi-sensei," Naruto looked sheepish, "But I kind of screwed up his test for him."

Hinata tilted her head on a querying gesture.

"Well, I kind of," he paused, rubbing the back of his head, "Blew up the training ground?"

"Wait, that was you?" She asked in surprise, she had, of course, heard the explosions from where her own team were training in Konoha, but hadn't thought to connect it with Naruto, which, in fairness, _probably_ should have been her first guess. He was normally at ground zero whenever something loud and conversation-worthy happened in the village, after all.

"Yeah, see, Kakashi-sensei said to come at him with everything we've got, right? So I figured, why not use some of the super-awesome jutsu I learned from that secret scroll before graduation? He's a jonin, right? He can take it. And I _might,_ " he stressed the word, "have gone a little bit overboard. But we passed! Mainly because I made some shadow clones and had them carry Sakura and Sasuke back to the hospital and Kakashi-sensei said something about that being close enough to teamwork for him, but still, I totally carried the team!" he paused, "Er, literally and the other kind of way."

"Metaphorically?" Hinata offered.

"Yeah, that," Naruto agreed.

"It sounded like an exciting situation," Hinata said faintly, not really knowing what else to say.

"Oh yeah, it was so cool!" Naruto cheered, "Everything exploding, all the different colours, Sasuke screaming in terror from fifty feet up in the air, so awesome! It was almost as good as that time I stuck a weird-looking contact lens on Kiba, followed him around for a whole day making weird stuff happen to everyone he looked at, and made him think he'd unlocked a super secret bloodline called the Shenanigan."

"Wait, that was you?" Hinata got the feeling she would be asking that a lot around him in the future, "He was so adamant he wasn't making it up. They even brought in members of our clan to observe his chakra system as he glared at things."

"Well, technically, I guess he wasn't making it up," Naruto agreed cheerfully, "I was. That taught him not to let Akamaru pee in perfectly good ramen." Hinata couldn't help but giggle a bit, even if she felt a bit bad for poor Kiba, "Hey, we should hang out more often, you're actually really cool Hinata! But right now I've really gotta get to Ichiraku's before these free ramen vouchers Iruka-sensei gave me run out, so see you later!"

"Goodbye, Naruto," she waved as he sped off. She continued waving. Then she stopped and thought back on the last couple of minutes.

"W-wait, what?" she mumbled, shrinking in on herself again and feeling a powerful combination of absolute mortification and utter confusion, "I just had a whole conversation with him? He thinks I'm cool? I didn't stutter, or faint, or... where did all _that_ come from?"

* * *

Unseen to anyone else present, Orochimaru gave himself a silent thumbs up from his position hiding in a tree above the street. That would show Kabuto to doubt that the 'Instant Courage, Just Add Chakra' jutsu would come in handy one day. If this didn't secure his future invite to the wedding, he wasn't sure what would.

He crossed yet another thing from his to-do list as his eyes flicked down to the next item.

 _Make Danzo extremely dead before he ruins even more things_.

This one would require careful and delicate handling, he realised. Not because Danzo would be difficult to kill, no, he could do that in his sleep. The tricky part, however, was doing it in a way which ensured that the little ROOT experiment girl would still end up in the same class as Naruto's son and Mitsuki in the future. That girl was vital to his cunning and extraordinarily important plan to ensure his wonderful little Mitsuki ended up with Sasuke and Sakura's daughter.

"The trials of a father never cease," he sighed dramatically, before fading away into the greenery.


	5. Chapter 5

Danzo signalled silently. His operatives fanned out, covering every inch of the clearing. It was unlikely that any of them would be able to significantly dismay an opponent on the calibre of one of the Legendary Sannin, but they would be well-placed to give their lives in his defence to allow him an opportunity to escape should this discussion go awry.

He waited, silently, until his appointed meeting walked, casually to an almost insulting extent, into the clearing.

"Orochimaru."

"Danzo."

The two men stared at each other for a moment. "You called for this meeting," Danzo began, "What do you want, boy."

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. "I am here..." the air became thick. His operatives tensed, ready to move at the slightest notice, "For your check-up!"

And like that, the tension was dissolved. "What?" Danzo couldn't help but ask.

"Your check-up," Orochimaru repeated, before putting on an affronted look, "What, did you think that I, team-mate of the greatest medical ninja in the world, would perform a highly dangerous experimental procedure on a patient and not perform an appropriate level of after-care?"

Danzo stared at him. "That is literally all you have ever done since you started experimenting."

Orochimaru paused. "That's fair," he admitted, "However… you are the first time I have performed such a procedure and had an opportunity to observe the eventual results first-hand."

Danzo's visible eye narrowed. "You're speaking of your supposed 'knowledge from the future'."

"You are well informed," Orochimaru chuckled, "Indeed, I am. And you will become quite the spectacular specimen indeed. It isn't often one gets the chance to have a future Hokage as a patient."

If Danzo were a more expressive man, his breath might have hitched. Instead, he merely went still. "Are you implying..."

"That you are the future Sixth Hokage?" Orochimaru finished for him, "Yes, I am. However, you are cut down, tragically, in your prime, by a foe within your very own body… but if I am here this soon, I may have a chance to reverse the process. Hence, a check-up."

Danzo eyed the man, weighing up the options. Finally, he made a difficult decision. "Fine," he said shortly, "But if you attempt anything, know that it will be the death of us both."

"I'm sure," Orochimaru chuckled again.

For the next ten minutes, the man prodded, poked, and observed. He made notes, he hummed thoughtfully, he stroked an imaginary beard. Finally, he fixed Danzo with a grave look that worried the old shadow more than anything he had seen in years.

"Danzo," he asked with the utmost seriousness, "I need you to answer some questions, as honestly as you can, to complete my diagnosis. Have you found yourself treating other people with unusual positivity at any point in the last few weeks?"

"Unusual positivity?" Danzo blinked, but then a recent memory sprung to mind, unbidden…

 _'Your report, sir.' The operative kneeled._

 _'Good work,' Danzo commented._

"Yes," he said in mounting alarm.

"I see. And have you developed an unusual interest in plants, or any particular part of a plant, recently?"

He thought again.

" _I must rebuild ROOT," Danzo said to his reflection in the mirror, "for it is the roots in the dark that are the framework which allows the leaves to flourish in the sun." He nodded in satisfaction, that was a good one, he'd keep working on that._

He resisted the urge to swallow. "Y-yes. But what does this mean?"

"It means that my fears have been realised, and the process, even now, has accelerated beyond my ability to stop it," Orochimaru said solemnly.

"What process?" Danzo demanded, "What can't you stop?"

"One does not simply take the cells of an individual as exceptional as Hashirama Senju into their body without consequence," Orochimaru explained, "Facets of the former First Hokage's personality are already beginning to bleed over into your own."

"It can't be," Danzo gasped.

"Symptoms may include, but are not limited to," Orochimaru raised a hand before listing them off, "Smiling, passionate and supposedly-friendly rivalries with members of the Uchiha clan, an unusual talent in horticulture, and inexplicably giving out super-weapons to all of your most powerful enemies."

"No," his patient whispered, staring forward in horror, "Not the super-weapons!" he turned a desperate eye back to Orochimaru, "Please, there must be a treatment! I can not become so weak, the Leaf will never survive!"

"I'm sorry," Orochimaru shook his head, "There is nothing anyone can do. The only medic in the world with the skill to reverse this is Tsunade, and due to her nature as a Senju, if she injects her chakra into you as part of the healing process it will only make things even worse."

"I… my dream…" Danzo sobbed, "I can't go on like this. I can't allow my work to be subverted by a mockery of myself, encouraging my ninja to ruin themselves with things like… critical thinking, or social interaction! Thank you for telling me this, Orochimaru," his eyes hardened with determination as sealing marks began to appear all across his body, "There is only one thing I can do to prevent this terrible fate!"

Orochimaru rapidly substituted himself with one of the man's subordinates, rushing to a safe distance, then proceeded to watch in shock as Danzo imploded himself and everything around him in a rather spectacular and conclusively final display.

With a trembling hand, he pulled a scroll out of his pocket. "I was wrong," he whispered, staring at the innocuous-seeming object with a mixture of reverence and horror, "It seems that there truly _is_ such a thing as too much power."

Without hesitation, he lit the scroll on fire and turned to leave, even as Danzo's remaining subordinates stood, confused and unsure of what to do.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru's still-flaming scroll continued to burn away, until it was reduced to mostly ashes, with only the title still visible:

 _My Collected Notes on Uzumaki Naruto's Talk No Jutsu_

 _By Orochimaru of the Sannin_


	6. Chapter 6

Orochimaru was fairly pleased with his achievements so far. He had put Jiraiya, and through him Sarutobi-sensei, on track to stop Akatsuki before Zetsu's plan could come to fruition. He had put Naruto and Sasuke on the track to become the absurdly powerful monsters they needed to be if Zetsu somehow managed to succeed anyway. He had (hopefully) cured Tsunade by way of infuriating her enough that she would surely break through her fear of blood in her quest to cave his skull in. He had helped Naruto and Hinata start a friendship and almost certainly secured his long-awaited wedding invite. He had annihilated Danzo with the most terrifyingly powerful jutsu ever conceived by mankind.

He couldn't help but think that he was forgetting something important, though.

He thought about it for a moment.

Then he clicked his fingers in realisation. "The mini-Tsunade!"

* * *

Life as a genin was not quite what Haruno Sakura imagined it would be. This was her prevailing thought as she trailed behind the rest of her team on the way back from another d-rank mission.

For one, Sasuke was supposed to be cool, calm and collected, and would sweep her off her feet while generally being awesome. Instead, he was a jumpy, almost impressively paranoid wreck, especially, it seemed, in anything relating to their Sensei. There were only so many times it could happen before she couldn't help but notice that Sasuke never turned his back on Kakashi, or how his eyes always flicked around making sure he knew the location of every exit in the room whenever the man was nearby, or how he would subtly try to note down the man's habits in a little notebook whenever he thought nobody was looking. His skills also seemed to have improved – while not as flashy as Naruto, he was certainly pulling out random and exotic jutsu that she was sure he didn't ever do at the academy.

For another, Naruto was supposed to be a harmless moron who never got anything right and was just annoying. Instead, he was an insanely powerful genin with what she could only assume was enough destructive potential to level the entire village and nowhere near enough common sense to make effective and responsible use of said power. On top of that, in an even more incredible series of events, he may even have actually noticed that Hinata was crushing on him super hard, given that she'd seen the two talking to each other like actual friends a couple of times now.

Meanwhile, there was Kakashi-sensei, who managed the quite spectacular feat of disappointing her despite her having absolutely no pre-set expectations of the man. He seemed to spend all of his time either trying to figure out why Sasuke thought he was going to do something horrible to him or trying to convince Naruto that no, a technique designed to level city walls was not appropriate for use on a mission to paint someone's fence.

In the midst of all this was her. Plain old Haruno Sakura. No special talent or distinguishing features to speak of outside of an unusual hair colour and an aptitude for the theoretical. She sometimes felt kind of left out, actually. When was she going to get an inexplicable power-up and be looked at in admiration or fled from in indescribable terror like her team-mates? She wasn't really picky as to which one, a girl just needed some attention every now and again.

"Oh wow," someone said loudly from her right, "Is that Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke's team? I hear they get into all kinds of trouble."

She couldn't help but agree with this suspiciously-timed comment.

"It sure would be helpful if they had a medical ninja around to make sure they didn't kill themselves while engaging in their hijinks," the bystander continued, just as loudly.

She frowned. That seemed a bit on the nose. She turned to look at the man in the unusually restrictive and covering clothing.

"Why, if I was a member of their team," the man said slightly louder, "I'd go right down to the hospital now and start learning how to be a medical ninja!"

"Okay, while I don't disagree with the idea you're suggesting," Sakura told him plainly, "You really couldn't be more obvious about this."

"I don't know what you're talking about, random shinobi who I don't know," the man replied nervously, "I'm just thinking out loud!"

Sakura simply stared at him, unimpressed, with her hands on her hips.

"Okay, fine, this was a rush job, okay?" he said defensively, "I assure you, if I had more time to plan this out you never would have noticed me pushing you toward your destiny as the greatest medical ninja in the world."

"Sure I wouldn't," Sakura said, unimpressed, "What was Plan B, a sign outside my window extolling the values of medical ninjutsu?"

"Of course not," he replied, clearly offended, "That was as far back as Plan G."

"Uh-huh," Sakura sighed disbelievingly, "Look, how about I just head off to the hospital, sign myself up to start learning medical ninjutsu, and we'll both pretend that I have no idea it was because of a mysterious, enigmatic bystander dropping an idle comment in what was surely a total coincidence?"

"No, no," the mystery man shook his straw-hat covered head, "I can't accept that after this challenge to my professional pride! We're going to do this and we're going to do it properly! Are you free this time tomorrow?" he asked curiously.

"Should be," Sakura agreed, not wanting to insult someone's professionalism, "Should I wander down this street pondering my place on my team and my future direction in life again?"

"That would be ideal," he agreed, "I will see you tomorrow."

"Catch you then," she waved goodbye to the strange man as he mysteriously disappeared into the shadows (she had to give him credit for the dramatic exit, at least.)

Then she paused.

Silently, she thought about the events of the last few minutes.

"Oh god, this can only be my Naruto and Sasuke moment."


	7. Chapter 7

Naruto was panicking. His alarm had failed to go off and now he was almost late to meet the rest of the team! He couldn't emulate Kakashi-sensei, not when he was on a team with Sasuke. The man himself might have been able to handle Sasuke's occasional assassination attempts, but Naruto really didn't need that kind of heat.

On the plus side, hopping from rooftop to rooftop while trying not to spill your breakfast of cup ramen (what else?) was actually pretty good training. He shoveled another mouthful of noodles down his throat – and that was when disaster struck.

It seemed the owner of the building he just landed on wasn't keeping their roof up to standard. A loose roof tile gave way under his foot, causing him to lose his balance.

Flailing slightly, he was able to stop himself from tumbling to the streets below. But the accident had an unfortunate casualty.

"My ramen," he cried as the contents of his little cup of heaven fell to the street below.

Naruto was faced with the first true test of his emotional maturity, and one of the most difficult decisions of his career. Did he rush down to try and make the Three Second Rule, or did he write his brave but unfortunate noodles off as a casualty of war and continue on to meet his team?

Hardening his heart, he put the good of the mission ahead of the good of his taste-buds. Giving his fallen breakfast a solemn salute, he continued on his way, a solitary tear rolling down the side of his face.

* * *

"Look, all I'm saying is that covering the problem with beetles might not be the perfect solution to _every_ problem," Kiba said diplomatically.

"It hasn't failed me yet," Shino responded simply, "Look at our success in our most recent mission."

Team 8 was walking the streets of Konoha to report back after yet another successful d-rank mission. To a given definition of 'successful'.

"Shino, that was a babysitting mission and I'm fairly sure you traumatised that toddler for life," Kurenai, the jonin-sensei responsible for the squad, pointed out reasonably.

"Indeed, and I believe we can classify that outcome as a total success. Why, you ask?" Shino adjusted his glasses, "Because now that little shit understands the consequences of flicking food at the coats of hard-working genin."

"But that-" Kiba was cut off as a passing man, engrossed in his newspaper, bumped into him, making him stumble. "Hey, watch where you're going, asshole!"

The man turned around with a scowl and was clearly about to retort when a portion of ramen fell from the sky and landed directly on his head. Noodles, broth and little re-hydrated vegetables alike streamed from the top of his head, down onto his clothing in their gravity-fuelled desire to reach the ground.

Everyone on the street stopped and stared.

Then they started laughing.

As the humiliated man hurried off, presumably in search of a shower, Team 8 stood around in a state of bemusement.

"Well," Kurenai said blandly, "That's something you don't see every day." She then noticed the look on one of her students' faces. "What's wrong, Kiba?"

"I knew it," he whispered in awe. "I knew it! I never stopped believing! Quick, Kurenai-sensei, do my eyes look different?"

Kurenai gave him a quick study. "No."

"Must have turned them off automatically," the boy mumbled.

"Turned _what_ off?" his sensei asked in exasperation.

"My all-powerful eye bloodline," Kiba announced proudly, "The Shenanigan!"

Kurenai gave him a look so neutral that it rivalled the faces on the Hokage monument. Shino sighed. Hinata gracefully resisted the urge to join Shino in favour of acting as the voice of reason.

"Kiba," she said carefully, "I think that was just a coincidence. I saw Naruto jumping on the rooftops overhead and he must have dropped it by accident."

"Nah," Kiba shook his head, "No way that guy would ever drop Ramen and even if he did, he'd try for the Three Second Rule."

"The Shenanigan," Kurenai repeated blankly.

"But I saw him up there," Hinata protested mildly, "And I am extremely confident in my ability to spot Naruto from a distance."

"Indeed, the logical assumption is that you do not have an eye bloodline that causes random acts of minor misfortune to happen to those you glare at. Why, you ask?" Shino queried rhetorically, "Because that would be dumb."

Kiba eyed them for a moment. "...Nah, y'all are just jealous of my incredible visual prowess."

"That," Hinata sighed, there were so many things wrong with that statement that she didn't know where to begin. She decided now was not the time and place for this discussion. "Yes, Kiba. You're correct. I'm sorry to have doubted you."

"The Shenanigan." Out of concern, Hinata did a quick check to make sure their sensei hadn't started foaming at the mouth.

"Well, as our Sensei seems unable to contribute to the discussion, I will endeavour to change the topic of our conversation to one that does not make me want to challenge a giant Rhinoceros to a physical clash of heads," Shino sighed, "Have you been progressing in your new studies, Hinata?"

"Oh," Hinata brightened, "Yes, I have!"

"Oh?" This even snapped Kurenai out of her funk. Ever since she managed to hold a full conversation with the boy she was crushing on, Hinata had gained a lot of confidence, and this translated into her willingness to improve her skills – and also awakened something of a creative streak when it came to coming up with new ways to apply the Gentle Fist and new Jutsu, "How so? Have you completed your technique?"

"Not quite yet, but I will have it soon," Hinata nodded, "I just need to find a conveniently-placed waterfall. I mean, er," she stammered, not wanting to go into details about that particular part of her training regimen, "Yes, soon."

"And this was the thing where you shoot tons of little laser beams from your hands and make them into a shield, right?" Kiba eloquently described what he remembered of her new technique.

"They aren't laser beams," Hinata frowned, "They're tiny blades of chakra."

"They are thin strands of energy that can be used to cut or otherwise harm an opponent," Shino stated conclusively, "With that in mind, 'Laser' is not an inappropriate descriptive term."

"Anyway," Hinata said a bit louder, not willing to have this argument again, "I also came up with a new idea for an offensive technique that I'm starting to work out the theory behind."

"Oh?" Kurenai prompted her surprisingly creative genin to go on.

"Well, it occurred to me that the Gentle Fist does not give me much reach in close combat," Hinata began, "So... what if I cover my hands with chakra lions that eat my opponent's chakra?"

They all stared at her.

"That," Shino said after a moment, "Sounds absolutely fucking metal."

Hinata went red. Whether it was from the praise, the swear word or all of the above, the rest of the team were not sure – while she was more confident, she still wasn't the best at taking compliments. "It's still quite a way off from being usable, but I'm fairly sure it can work."

One of the team was not quite so impressed, though. "Why lions?" Kiba asked suspiciously.

"Oh… well, I wanted to make them look like a fierce predator for the intimidation factor, and I prefer mammals because they're fluffy," Hinata explained demurely, "But I also didn't want to use a canine because I didn't want you to think I was trying to steal your gimmick. So a big cat of some kind was the best choice!"

Kurenai silently pondered the merits of a decision-making process that involved selecting an animal for intimidation factor based on fluffiness.

Meanwhile, Kiba relaxed, seeing the logic. "Oh, that's okay then. I almost thought you were a cat person or something for a moment there."

A mysterious passer-by snorted loudly.

"What's his problem?" Kiba grumbled, "I'll show him with my super powerful bloodline!" He began to glare at the cloaked man's back. " _Glare…_ "

* * *

Orochimaru let his chuckles die down at the thought of Kiba Inuzuka not being a fan of cat people at this age. His work in Konoha was done, with all major things that needed to be tweaked having been tweaked successfully and everything was moving, not quite exactly according to his design, but in what was at least the direction he was aiming for.

His eyes flicked to the next task on his list and he couldn't help but grin in anticipation. Not only was this an excellent way to tweak Obito's nose, it was also an incredible opportunity to commit gratuitous amounts of Science!

He forcibly calmed himself down when he realised his evil cackle was drawing the attention of random passers-by. But the excitement still rumbled underneath the surface…

There was no _way_ he was letting Kabuto have all the fun on this one this time around.


	8. Chapter 8

In a small valley in the Rain Country, there was a cave. A large, but otherwise unassuming-looking cave, with no stand-out features, unusual wildlife, or anything else that would mark it as anything other than an entirely ordinary cave.

It was for this reason that the most powerful organisation of missing-ninja in the world chose it as a meeting point for their spectral projections.

Well, that and the fact that it wasn't far for Pain and Konan to travel.

"Why did you gather us here?" Hidan demanded, "I was in the middle of a sacrifice to Jashin!"

"You were plucking the wings off a fly," Kakuzu said bluntly.

"It was a blaspheming fly," Hidan shot back defensively.

"Enough," Pein's booming voice shook the cave, "I gathered you here today because a former member has contacted us requesting re-admittance to the group."

This caught everyone present by surprise. "You don't mean Orochimaru?" Kisame said with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed I do, Kisame," Pein confirmed, "He made contact with us yesterday requesting what I believe he said to be an 'audition'. This would be the first time this has happened in the history of the group, so I wanted to ensure everyone is on the same page if what he shows us is impressive enough for me to agree to his request."

"True enough," Sasori mused, "Normally when someone leaves this group it's because they're dead."

* * *

The projections stared in shock. One stared in horror.

"Observe," Orochimaru said grandly, "With my new-and-improved Edo Tensei, I can even resurrect such great and powerful beings as the legendary Uchiha Madara!"

He had Madara's body step forward and take a bow.

"Now, given that Edo Tensei only works on dead people, it certainly was a good job that he was really, really dead," Orochimaru continued with a wide smile, "Observe his Edo-Tensei eyes, a strong indicator of how extremely dead he is supposed to be. Why, if I had to say how dead he was before I did this, I'd say he was even deader than Itachi's extended family. Which he technically was part of, I suppose."

The man in question didn't rise to the jab, so focused was he on the revived body and it's implications.

"Now, observe as I make this very dead individual perform incredible feats of corpse-ism that will astound you all and – oh," Orochimaru looked at his risk, "Is that the time already? Where does it go?" he sighed theatrically, "Oh well. Gentlemen, and Lady, I'm sorry to leave you like this, but I have an experiment running and if I don't get back to it right this instant then unspeakable crimes against humanity may occur," he paused, "Well, slightly more unspeakable than they would have been in the first place. We'll have to pick this up another time, yes? Goodbye!"

With that, he disappeared into the ground. The revived body of Uchiha Madara faded away into dust.

Kisame, Itachi, Pein and Konan turned, almost robotic-ally, to stare at Tobi.

Meanwhile, the man in question couldn't help but gape at the possible destruction of all his hopes and dreams. "Well, fuck."

* * *

Orochimaru whistled a happy tune as he strolled away from the cave. If he'd known that being a good guy was going to be this much fun, he'd have done it years ago.

Really, he'd practically solved the whole thing by himself, despite his words to Jiraiya when he first introduced himself after coming back. All he had left to do was to catch Zetsu and do Science to it until it died and he could happily retire from the ninja life. Maybe he'd even ask Sarutobi-sensei for a retirement fund. A hero of his ability and stature certainly deserved it, after all.

Team Seven had been put on the road to ultimate glory (and collateral damage), the Akatsuki were well in hand with Obito having an extraordinarily deadly mutiny to deal with (and he could always just revive Madara again to clean up if the need arose), and there was absolutely nothing else left for him to be concerned with.

Except the fist that collided with his face and sent him hurtling for several hundred meters.

When the world stopped spinning and he had the presence of mind to look up again, all dreams of a peaceful retirement died as he stared at the woman who was currently cracking her knuckles and giving him a look that promised murder, revivification and murder again. Oh. He hadn't been expecting her to track him down this quickly. Or, well, at all, actually.

"I believe this is the part where I say," Tsunade grinned. It was not a nice grin. "Shock therapy, bitch."

Orochimaru smiled nervously, and frantically scanned his memories for the instructions to the Teeth Regrow no Jutsu. He had a feeling he was about to desperately need it.

Such were the trials of a hero.

* * *

 _ **THE END**_

 _ **...POSSIBLY**_

 _ **...AT LEAST, UNTIL FURTHER SHENANIGANS (NOT THE DOJUTSU) ARE IMAGINED, THEN IT MIGHT NOT BE THE END, BUT FOR NOW, LETS TREAT IT AS THE END**_


End file.
